Hotties Denied "Masculine" Jobs

They may be snatching up office gigs, but attractive women are being denied jobs that are thought to have masculine qualities, such as security, prison guard, truck driver, and hardware salesman, according to a study in the Journal of Social Psychology. Their beauty did not hinder them from getting "feminine" jobs (i.e. secretary), and in fact, good looks improved a woman's odds of getting such a position.

Salon's Broadsheet pointed out that some of the discrimination could be chalked up to "the physique expected (and reasonably so, in some cases) of someone in one of these manlier fields." And we do have a hard time picturing Gisele Bündchen lifting bags of cement—though certainly she could hammer a nail at a construction site—but the same would be true if she was not such a hottie and was still not very strong.

On the opposite (and more familiar) end of the spectrum, Salon is also running an essay this week by a middle-aged teacher who was passed over for a job in favor of a younger, attractive colleague. (It's poignantly titled: "The Hot Young Teacher They Hired Instead.") While in that situation, the foxy colleague was almost certainly hired because she was also cheaper (the more experienced woman would have cost twice as much), a fact acknowledged in the essay, the writer still felt the psychological impact of being passed over for a newer model.

Have you ever ever felt like you weren't hired because you were too hot—or too not—for a job?